"Friends don’t let friends get spied on.' – Richard Stallman, President of the Free Software Foundation and longtime advocate of privacy in technology.

Firefox 1.0 was released ten years ago, on Nov. 9, 2004. At the time, Microsoft’s web browser, called Internet Explorer, dominated the marketplace despite its many security holes. Firefox was designed to be more secure, faster, and to not be encumbered by Microsoft’s advertising. Indeed, it has achieved all those aims and still continues to add new improvements. Johnathan Nightingale, vice president of Firefox, has made a number of new […]

The Home Depot recently revealed that its systems had been hacked, leaving approximately 56 million customer credit cards and 53 million email addresses vulnerable to cybercriminals. The company says Microsoft’s Windows operating system is the problem. Apparently the hackers gained access to Home Depot’s supposedly secure servers because of the security vulnerabilities within Windows. The Home Depot has now reportedly switched many top-ranking employees to Macintosh computers and iPhones because […]

After last year’s revelations about U.S. Internet surveillance raised interest in privacy tools, Google and Yahoo both announced they were working on software to let people who use their e-mail services easily exchange encrypted messages. Now a prototype browser extension called ShadowCrypt, made by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Maryland, goes even further. It makes it easy to send and receive encrypted text on […]

You probably have a tracking device in your pocket. You are helping government spies, hackers, burglars, and cell phone companies track your every move. Every time you place your cell phone in your pocket or purse, you are on the radar and your movements, position, orientation, and conversations are all open to someone. In fact, that happens whether you place a call or not. The “smart phones,” such as an […]

A federal judge has ruled that the FBI’s futuristic facial-recognition database is deserving of scrutiny from open-government advocates because of the size and scope of the surveillance technology. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said the bureau’s Next Generation Identification program represents a “significant public interest” due to concerns regarding its potential impact on privacy rights and should be subject to rigorous transparency oversight. Details may be found in an article […]

The Western Digital My Passport Ultra is a portable drive that you can slip into your shirt pocket. Best of all, it features 256-bit hardware encryption and integrated local and cloud backup solutions that allow you to make use of your Dropbox account to create a an additional backup. It is one of the better devices available today for making backups and for carrying your information with you. From a […]

Dave Dean from Too Many Adapters has published an article containing great tips and advice on travel tech and gear. This month’s column is on data security. If you’re going to be toting a smartphone, tablet or laptop around the world, protecting your data really matters. It doesn’t take a huge effort or cost to keep yourself safe – but if you don’t, you’re at serious risk of losing all […]